“In the eighties, groups of tourists from Eastern Europe started to Venice,” writes Tiziano Scarpa in Venice is a Fish. “From dawn to dusk they wandered along the calli in well-behaved committees. They had travelled through the night from Budapest or Prague to feast their eyes on as many cities as possible in twelve hours.”

In addition to my affinity for the grande viaggiatore Marco Polo and the very name Mark (the city’s patron, as I wrote in April), that’s my personal connection to the book and to Venice. You see, in the nineties, I was one of those tourists, an American travelling by bus with a Slovak chorus. In our case, the overnight trip was from Central Slovakia to Trent, a couple of hours to the northwest of the city of canals. After a couple of concerts and three nights in dormitories, we (foolishly) travelled overnight to the Republic of San Marino, several hours south—which just wasn’t worth the hardship. Then we went back up Italy’s Adriatic Coast and spent a couple of hours in Venice before continuing to Croatia to give more concerts. Much more than twelve hours, but Scarpa is essentially right.

Venice native Scarpa’s portrays out-of-the-way places – and many common ones – lovingly; that is, like a lover who knows the other’s body all too well. Not all the smells are pleasant. Nor are all the other sensations of Venice. “Feel how your toes turn prehensile on the steps of the bridges, clutching at worn or squared edges as you climb; your soles brake you on the way down, your heels halt you,” he writes in the chapter “feet” (lowercase in my English edition—all the chapters are body parts). He observes that Venitians have little heart disease, thanks to all the stair climbing. In “mouth,” he introduces you to the city’s dialect and cuisine.

Venice is a Fish is a feast for all the senses. A movable feast, at 5 x 7” and 150 pp., you can easily take it on vacation, even to less exotic locales. Published in Italian in 2000, English translation 2008 by Shaun Whiteside.

I’ll start this entry with links to two articles of concern, I don’t like to get political, but sometimes it’s inevitable. And so, I have just begun work as a volunteer translator for http://www.rightsinrussia.org/, a UK-based site. Apparently, it is more dangerous to be a journalist in Turkey nowadays than in Russia, as this article details. Since my Balkans trip in 2014, I have been much more conscious of Turkey’s influence on European history—including the Ottoman Empire becoming a refuge for persecuted Jews. And there’s the dark side, the Armenian genocide, among other things. The second link is to a nicely nuanced NY Times story on China’s odd status as colonial power.

Since my previous post was on Venice, I thought I’d follow up with this story about limiting fast food vendors in an attempt to maintain the city’s integrity. Travel news buffs know about its attempts to curb the number of tourists—a phenomenon that’s been seen in other cities, like Barcelona, and sights such as Machu Picchu.

Finally, since my main focus is on Central Europe and the years that I lived there, I have to mention that “The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz” celebrates 150 years in 2017. It premiered in a male chorus version 15 February 1867. I’m a bit late you think? Well, on that anniversary date I was heavily involved in the four-day run of the musical The Most Happy Fella. But I can make up for it now, since the orchestral arrangement everyone knows premiered in May 1867 in conjunction with the Paris World Expo.

Below, please have a look at the Video from the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2010 New Year’s Concert. I chose it for the views of the river in several countries, flowing from modern-day Austria through Hungary, Serbia, etc. I'm sorry they missed Slovakia. I’ll come back with a fuller entry next week, with some pics from my own travels at various points on the Danube.

Also coming up this month: Summer Reading List. I'll review Tiziano Scarpa's Venice is a Fish, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, and Rick Steve's Travel as a Political Act.